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Published: January 19th 2009
View from Our Room
The view from my and Libor's window.Greetings all!
I know it's been kind of a while since I've written, so I'll try to catch you up on what's been going on.
The squirrel (aka Julie) left last Wednesday at the crack of dawn in Vienna. We pretty much just hung out for the week in Graz, and she got to meet my friends here. I took her down to Slovenia for a day, and then she also got a crash tour of Vienna the afternoon before she left. I ended up taking the train at 5:50 in the morning on Wednesday back to Graz, arriving at about 8:20, and then had my oral final in Czech at 1 o'clock. It was a long day overall, but fun...and I also got the Austrian equivalent to an A in Czech, which I am quite pleased with.
Thursday was low-key, just doing lots of laundry and preparing for Friday's adventures.
On Friday, I left my Italian class early half out of boredom and half out of need. We were learning about Italian architecture which I've had various courses on at UVM, so it was more than a little bit of a waste of time, and I
View
Again. had a date at the train station that I couldn't mit. At 2pm on Friday, I shipped out with some friends for Obersteiermark, the northern part of my state here in good ol' Austria, to the village of Mariazell. Leaving on Friday afternoon was (I'll include countries, even for the ones you already know): me (USA), Libor (CZ), Thomas (F), David (A), Mio (Japan), Andrea (E...that means Spain), George (Ireland), Julian (D...meaning German), and Hrvoje (HR....yes, that's Croatia). We were on the train headed for Bruck an der Mur, and along the way made a stop and picked up Martina, also from Austria. David and Martina are higher level students here in Graz, and work at the Erasmus office, and they organized this little private trip for us. In Bruck an der Mur, we switched from the train to the bus, and an hour and a half later arrived in Mariazell.
Mariazell is a small village in Obersteiermark, as I've previously said. It has a basilica there that is of enormous significant to Central European, and some Eastern European, countries, especially Hungary. Just about everything in the village was always written both in German and Hungarian. The basilica there
View
Right in the Alps. is in fact of such important significance that the Pope was there in 2007 for the 480th
anniversary of its construction, just to give you an idea. Also, it is bright, bright pink, which was really cool to see a church not in the traditional style.
So, we arrived in Mariazell and evening was falling. We dropped our stuff off at the house we were staying in, and headed out into the village. We didn't really stay in a hostel, but almost like a ski lodge. It was basically a family's house that had extra bedrooms, so we stayed there. Martina's family lives in the village next to Mariazell called Gusswerk, although we were actually staying in another village named St. Sebastian. Are you following all this? Well, we all were sharing rooms with each other, so the wife and I had our own room, with a view looking straight out at the Alps. B-e-a-utiful! I know I've been a bit roundabout as to describing Mariazell, but to give you the idea, just think of a teensy tiny village deep in a valley surrounding by the Alps on all sides. Yea, Our Room
Nothing special, but pretty nice for what we paid... that was where we were. After dropping our stuff off and donning our winter gear , we took off to do a little tour of the village. We visited the basilica, and then went to a small restaurant and had some traditional Austrian food--which I have taken quite a looking to. It's going to be rough not having Schnitzel, Wurst, Gulasch, Schwarzbrot, etc. etc. once I'm stateside again. Dinner was fun, and somehow we all got into the conversation of childhood songs. Being from all different countries, we all figured we had different songs and different rhymes and stuff. Wrong. It was pretty entertaining because we would each say one of ours in our original language--we were representing North America, Europe, and Asia--and then someone would interject and start saying the same thing in their own language. Really makes you wonder just how small the world is. After a great and relaxing dinner , we headed to the little bus stop to gather some more companions. Arriving at about 9 at night was: Jacqueline (F), Paul (A), Dmitri (M...ok, really not M, but I'm putting M for
On the Peak
Up on the peak of the mountain. Motherland, since he was from Mother Russia). We brought them to their place (called eine Quartier auf Deutsch), and then the real fun began! Since Martina is more or less a local of this area, she knew everybody, and so we got to do some bonus activities normally not allowed. We snuck up one of the ski slopes at about 9:30 at night, and it took us an hour to get all the way up. When we arrived on the top of the mountain, we then headed over to a small little ski shack, die Edelweißhütte. Now don't freak out, all you Sound of Music lovers, about the mention of Edelweiss (properly Edelweiß in German), it's a type of beer here. Anyways, we went there, as Martina knew the owner, who was the most Austrian looking man I've ever seen. He was older, probably in his 60s, and greeted us at the door wearing Lederhosen, giant boots, and a hat with a feather in it. The restaurant was a small place, but was outlined with white Christmas lights which was really nice. We went inside to warm up after our hike, and Martina introduced us to Schiwasser , which is
On the Peak
Also up on the peak. That's the restaurant we ate lunch at the second day. a combination of Raspberry
, water, and soda-water. It. was. awesome. The rest of the weekend that's all the rest of us drank! We hung out there and chatted and enjoyed ourselves for a bit, slurping down as much Schiwasser as we could get, and then, the moment we'd all been waiting for arrived: Rodeln! . With the man who owned the restaurant as our guide, we all hopped on a sled and rode down the mountain on the same path we'd just walked up! It was amazing! It was absolutely pitch black, and we followed each other in a line. You controlled with your feet and how much pressure you put on the ground, as well as the position you were sitting in . Although at one point George went flying off the path into the woods, we all made it down to the bottom safe, which was so much fun! We were adequately all freezing from the ride, as well as the snow that got kicked up into our faces from the person riding in front of us, but The Mountain
From the base. it didn't matter, it was great! After that, we just went back to our place to head to bed, as we had an early start the next day.
After eating breakfast at the ungodly hour of 7:30am on a Saturday, we headed to the mountain. Just about all of us needed to rent skis, but luckily I was able to get mine first. Since I was one of the few on the trip who had ever touched skis before, I went ahead with Libor and Paul and test out the mountain, and not just stay on the bunny slope. As we rode the chairlift to the top, I told them that it'd been a few years since I'd been skiing, so I'd like to just do a blue trail, the easiest, first, so that I could get back into it again. They agreed that that was best, and so we took the equivalent of a double black diamond instead. Thanks, guys. After kissing more snow than I care to remember , we ended up in the middle of the woods, not on the trail. Sweet. We
Quick Stop
It was scenic, so I had to take a picture. ended up having to ski down the footpath, and then walk a little ways. We finally found the slope again, and wouldn't you know, skiied right out into the middle of a race! Paul went first and rode over the finish line, which was entertaining since the announcer had no idea what was going on. I was second and was stopped on the side of the mountain, as I'd realized what happened. Libor was last and was able to ski away from the race zone. Of course, I had a very angry Austrian referee come over to me and tell me that I couldn't ski there, that I couldn't go forward, but that I couldn't go back. I looked at him and said, "Well what do you suppose I should do then!?" I ended up having to ski over the finish line, which was also a bit entertaining, but so it goes. After that, we did a few more torturous runs on the black and red slopes, and finally, after kissing the snow for about the 50th time and swearing up and down that mountain with a mouth worse than a sailor's so that my grandfather would've been proud, I
The Alps
A little zoom action this time. finally arrived at the bottom of one of the slopes and looking at them and said, "PASST." In other words, ENOUGH. After that, I went and found the others, as I wanted to actually enjoy my ski weekend, not just constantly be going down the hard slopes which were for me not possible. Anyways, I found the others, and helped some of them learn how to do the basic movements and carve and whatnot. After having a small lunch which was peppered with awesomely bad Austrian techno and oldies, as well as lots of ABBA remixes , we headed back out. This time, Jacqueline, Thomas, and I took the lift to the top, and did some of the blue slopes. We were all about the same in our skiing capabilities, where we weren't beginners, but that also didn't mean we were good. We were just there to do some fun runs and enjoy ourselves, rather than try to push ourselves to the absolute limit. We then met up with some of the other Frenchies who had arrived in the morning: Mylene, Claire, and Nico. Mai from Belgium had also arrived, but she was also
Me
Thomas took this. He and I had found this little path through the woods that ran adjacent to one of the trails we were on, so of course we had to take it. It was full of little jumps and moggles and stuff, so it was a lot of fun. a beginner, so wasn't with us. Another Czech had also arrived, Aleš, but he was a good snowboarder so was doing the harder slopes with Libor. We did some more runs on new slopes, though they were also not the more difficult ones, which was fun. At one point, though, Jacqueline lost control, and ended up wiping out. I was also going a little faster than I wanted, but was still under control. As all the others stopped to help her, I realized I had two options: 1. I could also easily stop and stand there awkwardly while she got her skis back on, or 2. I could catch some serious air from the little jump on the side of the trail, hop a small tree, and land in the deep snow outside the trail. To see my decision, check out the pictures.
After that, we met up with the others, and the day was quickly drawing to a close. We went back to our place, where we all changed from our ski gear, and set out for dinner. Libor and I had thought ahead and bought the 2-day ski pass instead of the one, so we actually had
My Decision
As you've hopefully read, Jacqueline fell at one point and I had the decision to stop or to take a jump and land in some deep snow. Can you figure out which I chose? [SO MUCH FUN!] the option of taking the cable car up to the top of the mountain, instead of walking back up. We were going to have dinner at the same restaurant, Edelweißhütte, from the night before. We decided to take the cable car since he was sick and didn't feel like walking. The others set out to walk up, and we set out to find the cable car station. Of course, though, it was closed, and so we ended up having to walk up anyways. With only the two of us, though, it took us only about 45 minutes to reach the top of the mountain--in pitch blackness, of course, except for the starlight. In the restaurant, which was kept open only for us, we all hung out for a bit and had more Austrian food and drank lots of Schiwasser and relaxed after a long but fun day. We were all impatiently waiting for our nighttime adventure, though: Rodeln Runde 2! Sledding Round 2! This time, the man who had led us wasn't going to take us, we had to do it on our own. That meant we didn't have light , and
Alps
Stolen from Mio we were left to our own devices to make it down. Libor and I took the lead, and since we both knew the path well, we ended up going quite fast and making it down first. We stopped twice along the way to wait for the others, and once we heard their screams , we knew they were close. As we waited for upwards of 5 minutes at the bottom for the rest to come along, we finally knew they were coming when we heard Andrea's screams and Martina's cries of "Aaaaandreeeeeeaaaaaaa, BREEEEEEEEEMSEEEEEEEEEN!!!!" Andrea, brake!!!!!!!!! They were riding on the same sled, and came to a screeching halt right in front of us, which was quite entertaining. The rest made it down safely, and we all just laughed and enjoy the high that came with sledding down the side of an Alp in the pitch blackness hoping not to die. After that, we headed to a little bar for a drink, where we were adequately stared at, as we all speak German with different accents, and had on all still ski-type clothes. We hung out, same song crazy Austrian songs that we've all come to know
The Austrians
Martina and David now by heart, and then called it a night.
Yesterday morning we woke up, and all the new-comers to skiing got their first taste of ski-soreness. Yes, skiing DOES require muscles! They all had a hard time with that, but so it goes. We set out for the mountain, though Libor and Aleš went to the neighboring mountain, where our pass also worked. To give you an idea of where we were, the mountain we were all skiing on was in Steiermark, my state, and the mountain the Czechs went to on Sunday was in Niederösterreich, the state above us. We were literally lying on the border. Anyways, we brought the new skiiers up to the top of the mountain, but they stayed for a bit on one of the beginners' slopes. Jacqueline and I did a few runs on some other slopes, and then, with Martina and David, brought the new skiiers down one of the more difficult, though easier, slopes. They all did quite well, and it was fun. Jacqueline and I then did some runs on our own, and since we were both pretty used to the slopes, since we only had a few choices for
The Guys
Thomas, Libor and Me. the not so strenuous ones, we were both starting to play around with doing some tricks, testing speeds, etc. etc. We had a group lunch at one of the lodges, where David, Jacqueline and I all ordered off the kids' menu, which the others got quite a kick out of, and then headed back out for the last few runs of the day. I was quite proud of myself, as I only had one real fall yesterday, but even that was a controlled fall, as I was leaning a little too far at one of the particularly steep sections of the mountains and slid along the ground, though I pretty much just bounced back up and it was good, and wasn't even really a fall.
After that, we just packed our things, caught the bus back to Bruck an der Mur, and then the train back to Graz, all sufficiently exhausted. We got back here at about 8:30 last night, and all just had a quite night of relaxation. It was a great weekend over, so much fun, and I can't wait to go again--especially for the sledding!
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kristy
non-member comment
Soo much fun! I'm so jealous - I haven't skied in forever! The sledding at night sounds like a blast! xok